


strangelove

by elektra



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elektra/pseuds/elektra
Summary: "If I can't be Ilya, who can I be?"





	strangelove

Ilya likes to pretend that visiting Asra is a chore.

He hovers there by the door, arms crossed tightly over his chest, surveying each corner with a lofty quirk of his eyebrow as if to ask, _are you perfectly content lounging in bed with this sort of mess around you?_ But he can’t ask, because that’s what he opened with last week, and to a much smaller mess at that.

The answer was, and still is, _yes, of course, but it’s better when you’re in bed too._

_Why? Feeling guilty about making your guest clean for you?_

_Quieter._

And Ilya laughed. He usually does. There’s very few things Asra says that aren’t funny in one way or another — people tend to stop thinking when they laugh, transitory and incandescent, just the way he likes it.

“Ilya, Ilya,” Asra shapes his voice into something light and easy, lets it make the vague alluring motions that his body would not. He prefers purposefulness. He’d not lift a finger if it meant stirring something he wouldn’t want to stir on the other side of the world.

From his reclined position in the attic loft, Asra can only hear the shift in Ilya’s posture. But the façade has been shattered; no words need be spared to assure Ilya of the invitation.

That really is the problem: Ilya thinks very loudly. He shuffles papers and clinks away bottles and miscellaneous jars loudly on purpose, so that Asra will take heed to his toils, but the thinking is loud because of the fact that he’s trying _not_ to think loudly. The infinity of the mind is too grand for itself sometimes.

So Asra dangles his foot down from the loft, and waits until it draws Ilya in like bait. It doesn’t take long — a warm, rough hand wrapping around the circumference of his ankle, fingertips creeping beneath the band of his flouncy trousers.

“Are you done tidying?” Asra asks, manufacturing an air of boredom.

Ilya scoffs. “You’re keeping me to a schedule now? You must think you’re very cute to be making demands like that.”

Isn’t he, though? Asra bites his smile away and shakes the grip off, turning back into a lush pile of tasseled pillows, well out of sight. With the round porthole window cracked open just enough to let the sunshine and a salty breeze smooth over the narrow attic, it’s not difficult to believe that he doses off for just a short while.

“— Can you believe it?”

“Hm?” Jostled awake, Asra rolls onto his back, wipes at his mouth. Sees Ilya ambling up the short ladder and trying not to slam his head into the ceiling, which is already suspiciously dented.

“You weren’t listening.”

“Mm-mm.”

Ilya’s face twists, but his ego recovers. “I was telling you about how another person mispronounced my name. ‘Only ever seen it written, on your papers,’ was the excuse this time. You know, they never have that problem with my surname.”

“You need a nom de plume.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my name.”

Asra thinks on this for a moment. He’s never considered this very important before. “Ilya,” he hums and makes room next to himself. “No, I suppose not. It’s fine.”

_“Fine.”_

Asra shrugs. Ilya is propped up on one elbow, his other hand on an exposed sliver of Asra’s stomach.

“What do you want me to say? It’s not the name of a valiant hero. Maybe a sailor. Ilya could adequately sail a sea.”

“I’ve a terrible allergy to mollusks.”

“Do you swell up?”

“Do I — No. No, I just stop breathing. I found this out when I tried oyster. I needed a hole punctured into my windpipe.”

“Mm.” Inexplicably, Asra’s fingers are drawn up to his throat, tingling when they touch that vulnerable patch of skin. “Did it hurt?”

A shiver. “Not as much as you think it would. So.” His hand takes Asra’s wandering one. “You were going to give me a _nom de plume._ "

“Was I?”

“I think you were. Come on. If I can’t be Ilya, who can I be?”

“It depends,” Asra murmurs. He turns onto his side too, faces Ilya, toying idly with a loose string off his unbuttoned collar. “You need a doctor’s name, but what kind of doctor will you be?”

A little wrinkle creases the strong bridge of Ilya’s nose — Asra’s favourite expression. Like he’s thinking, but not hard enough to hurt himself. Thinking, but not too loudly. It all goes out through his face, rather than welling up in the tight spot between his shoulder blades.

“Would it be too jejune of me to think that all doctors should be the good kind?”

“Maybe a bit. But sometimes doing all the right things is not what makes you good.”

Now Ilya thinks loudly. His thumb strokes across the highest point of Asra’s cheek, but there’s nothing in his eyes except a far away look.

“I’ll be good,” he whispers.

“I know.” Asra smiles, despite himself. He nearly got lost in the sudden strangeness of the mood, has yet to sort through how much he can prod and tease before he happens upon something red and raw. “Julian.”

“Julian?”

“It’s noble.”

“It’s pretentious.”

Asra gives a pointed stare.

“Alright, well —“

“— The good Doctor Julian.”

“I do like that.”

“Pronounceable.”

A snort. Neutral reaction. So it’s settled, then. Asra turns around, presses the entire length of his back against Ilya, pulls a rag-doll arm to create a loose circle around himself.

Ilya-Julian lets out a deep breath against the back of Asra’s neck. He estimates how much longer he has to nap, counting crows on buildings outside the stained glass window, everything rose.


End file.
